Neewer A7s Field Monitor: Great for YouTubers and Filmmakers

This is the Neewer A7s Field Monitor, it’s an external monitor that shows what you are capturing on your camera.

I picked up this monitor because I found that it was quite difficult to make sure everything was focused without needing to zoom in on the display built into the Canon 7D that I shoot with – and that built in display wasn’t very high resolution and it can’t be moved at all. The other reason I was drawn towards this was also the fact that it was affordable and had good specifications compared to other field monitors and the reviews of it had been very praising.

This monitor is branded from Neewer but Lilliput also has an identical monitor, so either brand will get you the same monitor – it looks like there’s just a different logo in place.

Design

The field monitor is constructed from plastic but comes with a silicon case fitted to protect it which comes fitted out of the factory. The front of the monitor is a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1920×1200, this was one of the things that made me pick this monitor as many other field monitors in this price bracket were only 720p and I wanted to make sure that the monitor was futureproof.

On the top of the monitor you’ll find an additional tripod thread as there’s also one on the bottom, and the power button, function buttons, menu navigation dial and exit button. The menu allows you to adjust necessary colour and brightness settings and overlays that you might have such as a histogram. One important thing that you’ll need to set if you’re shooting with a DSLR, like myself, is to ensure that you’ve picked one of the DSLR options on the menu – there are 5D Mark II and III options and either of those worked fine on my Canon 7D.

Connectivity

In regards to connectivity, there are two HDMI ports on the left-hand side of the field monitor – one for input and one acting as a passthrough if you had something such as a video recorder or an additional field monitor. There is also a 12V DC connector if you want to use mains power, and there’s also a headphone jack on the top for monitoring audio.

On the back of the monitor is space for battery power, which is very useful for shooting outdoors or on location. Different bundles may include different batteries and mounting plates, but the one I picked up includes two Sony NP-550 batteries and the charger.

Features

For the price that this monitor comes in at is has quite a few good features, I’m not going to list them all here but the ones that drew my attention was the focus peaking as that is extremely useful for manual focus – essentially what it does is add a colour overlay to the areas of the video that are in focus and the other feature that I liked was the histogram as it means that I can check that everything is exposed correctly.

As I previously mentioned, the display is 1920×1200 which is extremely good to have a full HD resolution but it also supports 4K video input which is great for futureproofing for myself in case I upgrade to a 4K camera but it is really useful for people shooting with 4K cameras.

Display

One of the obvious things to consider is the display, and I am very impressed with the display on this field monitor. It is extremely sharp and clear and the colour representation is also very impressive. I wasn’t expecting the best quality in the world but I am pleasantly surprised.

The display is glossy so there is that to consider if you are shooting outdoors but it does get bright which will be useful when shooting in bright sunlight. There is also a sun shade included which Velcro’s to the rubber case which can help block out sunlight.

Accessories

I’ve named quite a lot of the accessories already – those being the silicon case, sun shade and battery plate but there are a few more to mention. In the box there is a miniHDMI to HDMI cable included which will cover most DSLRs and there is also a hot shoe mount for mounting the monitor to the hot shoe on your camera, the quality of hot shoe mount isn’t amazing but it gets the job done.

Concluding

If you’re a YouTuber or a filmmaker that needs a budget option for a field monitor then I would highly recommend this, it has a good design and the display on the monitor is also very good.